Accident. Who's at fault

[Covidcovid]

I witnessed this as a pedestrian.

Teenager on bike comes out of a side street moving at speed. A van is on the main road coming in the same direction as bike. Behind the bike. Van is doing at least 30mph. Road in opposite direction is clear but van only pulls out about 3ft while going round cyclist and doesn't slow even though he could have moved much further out.

There's a small tesco on the right and cyclist without looking veers to the right to go to tesco. Van was still some point behind him and braked/swerved.

Can ended up on the pavement opposite side of the road. Nearly hit 2 pedestrian and took the kid on the bike out at the same time.

Obviously the kid should have looked but I feel with more thought to hazard perception, going slower and wider this could have been avoided. Driver said to me when I told him he was going too fast that he was only doing 30.

Well don't do 30mph and pass a cyclist so near. Even before the kid veered to the right I was watching and thinking the van driver was driving like an idiot. I wouldn't have overtaken until past the tesco turn.

Cyclist.

The van is definitely at fault.
The cyclist is a child.

Many years ago my df was driving towards a zebra crossing when a youth ran out straight in front of his car, my df touched him as he braked but no injuries.
My df was found guilty of driving without due care and attention and fined.

The onus is on the driver to judge the situation. The van driver should have expected a child may suddenly make a reckless manoeuvre.

Cyclist is at fault as they should have looked. The van driver is not a kind reader and could have no idea the cyclist was going to turn right

It’s irrelevant how close the van was in this case, even if he had passed wider the cyclist would still have hit him

Whilst cyclists, pedestrians etc are classed as vulnerable road users, it's quite outdated to say that cyclist automatically trumps car driver. A few years ago perhaps, but that presumption has largely disappeared, especially with the advent of dashcams, CCTV etc.

The im one of these that rarely overtakes and end up annoying cyclists as I'm driving nicely behind them. So van at fault

@Itmustbeheresomewhere

I can't believe a child was run over by a van, which then ended up on the pavement, which could have killed pedestrians and no one called the police. Is a hit and rum no longer a crime? Hopefully the parents called the police. The child was probably in shock and did not realise he was injured and probably terrified after being shouted at by a grown man, I'm appalled.

Exactly! It was a kid for heaven's sake! Some of the opinions on here are truly shocking. I'm disgusted enough with the general "cyclists think they rule the road" crap but to have those views towards a child is seriously weird

Child - possibly twice depending on that diagram.

1. should have given way coming out of a side street and doesn’t sound like they did. So entering a main road with oncoming traffic possibly dangerously

2. swerving to the right without looking/signalling etc. Again difficult to tell from the diagram but if that was too close to the van it may not have made much difference if the van was 2-3ft further to the right. If it happens suddenly, there is a limit to how fast you can reasonably react

@geckogirl13 @Itmustbeheresomewhere I completely agree!!!!

How long is the stretch of road between the cyclist turning onto the main road and tescos? It looks very short, and looks to me
like the cyclist should not have turned in front of the van in the first place?

@GnomeDePlume

Just to be clear, was the cyclist still ahead of the van when he attempted to turn into Tescos?

Yes. 100%.

The crash (please don't call it an accident, that is judging that no-one is to blame) may be viewed as being caused by the child pulling out. However if the van was exceeding 30 mph, the severity of impact and possible injuries are greater.

It's not a hit and run because the van driver stopped.

Police (even pre Covid) wouldn't attend accidents unless there were major injuries or debris requiring road closure or similar. Even when one driver refused to give their details there was no guarantee the police would turn up. So they're certainly not going to come out for what sounds like a near miss more than anything.

There's a thing I teach at Bikeability called the Lifesaver look. You do this before any manoeuvre. This alone would have stopped this situation. Never mind knowing about road positioning and signalling (for the cyclist)

That being said motor vehicles should leave as much space overtaking a cyclist as you would a car. So the van needed to be going further out and slower.

Greater awareness by both road users was needed.

Send your children on Bikeability courses! They are fab. The police like them as early driver training too.

Well if he is a child, he shouldn’t be cycling alone on the road.
I’m sorry but if you’re not responsible and sensible enough to cycle safely then you shouldn’t do so.

Ultimately it boils down to the cyclist thinking he was skilled, experienced on the road, as did the van driver.

Both are lucky to have the opportunity to be more realistic and cautious around others without either dying or going to jail.

My DS cycles & I drive like a taxi driver and it took awhile before he fully understood that no matter how confident he was, or even if that confidence was well-placed in real skill, the road has more than him me on it

The age of the cyclist is not relevant - if you cycle in the road you take responsibility.
Anyway, my actual point is I have had near exact same accident but I was not as lucky as van driver. I was overtaking cyclist when they swerved out across me resulting in my car overturned in a ditch.
Police etc arrived and confirmed not my fault. Cyclist admitted to manoeuvring without checking or indicating. Cyclists can be in the wrong.

@Pancakeorcrepe I teach P6 (age 10) and P7 (age 11) to ride on the roads at Bikeability level 2.

If they've been trained and are confident. It's fine. I grade them using a traffic light system.

Procedure for signal is look, lift, levers, lifesaver look, manoeuvre.

Check (look) it's safe to signal, then signal (lift,) return hands to handlebars before turning (levers), lifesaver look, then turn.

My son tells me the things he learned on the course have saved him from having accidents at least twice. Normally around having more situational awareness about what cars are doing

Also, you shouldn't ever overtake a cyclist unless you are 100% sure it's safe and there's no way to do that with a youngster on a bike.
So on that basis you never overtake a youngster on a bike?

You've written it as though you are sure the van driver is at fault "going at least 30", "driving like an idiot" and "only moved out 3 feet", but what you've actually written makes me wonder how reliable a witness you are.

Were there two cyclists? Because you've written: "and only pulls out about 3ft while going round cyclist and doesn't slow even though he could have moved much further out", but also "Van was still some point behind him and braked/swerved."
So he hadn't passed the cyclist by only 3 feet, because he hadn't actually gone past him? In fact you comment "still some point behind him". So you can't comment on how wide a berth he would have given the cyclist.
You also presumably were walking on the pavement, not the middle of the road, which means that the perspective can over/under estimate the distance. Like line judges at Wimbledon.

Also the cyclist came out from a side road the van is doing at least 30mph. A very good speed for an experienced cyclist is 15mph, so let's say the cyclist was doing 15mph, almost certainly wouldn't have been doing that.
So at 30mph the van would have been covering twice the distance as the cyclist, so if the cyclist had pulled out with 50m in front, and you certainly make it sound closer, then the van would have caught up in 100m (50m to junction plus another 50m).
Put it this way: 30mph is approximately 13.5m/s, so 100m takes around 7s.

You've said that in your opinion the van was going faster, and I would say that it's more likely the cyclist was going at 10mph, which would give you less time.

You're shocked, anyone is when they see an accident. It's very hard to be a reliable witness even when things are calm. But even though you have tried to imply the van driver is at fault, it doesn't sound like they were.
And that's from someone who would normally think cyclists are less likely to be at fault than vans.

No, Van driver's fault for overtaking too close and too fast.

Yes, ideally cyclist should have looked and indicated, but it's drilled into drivers to expect cyclists to make unpredictable maneuvers. This is a schoolkid on a bike in winter - its a textbook hazard perception scenario.

Driver best hope kid doesn't have injuries or his parents don't report. For one thing, he absolutely should have called the police after the collision and waited for them, and for another, he will be held at fault.

@MrKlaw

Child - possibly twice depending on that diagram.

1. should have given way coming out of a side street and doesn’t sound like they did. So entering a main road with oncoming traffic possibly dangerously

2. swerving to the right without looking/signalling etc. Again difficult to tell from the diagram but if that was too close to the van it may not have made much difference if the van was 2-3ft further to the right. If it happens suddenly, there is a limit to how fast you can reasonably react

How I read it, the cyclist is at fault.

Regardless of technicalities, teenagers are giant toddlers. They have very little understanding of risk, and I imagine the Highway Code was the last thing this 13 yo was thinking about. He was probably thinking only about sweets/crisps/fizzy drinks.

As a driver and a cyclist, I always work on the assumption that a teenager on a bike is likely to do something daft. I think any responsible driver would do this.

In short, the van driver was a twat.

The cyclist should've indicated and looked behind before pulling across the road. That being said, the van driver was overtaking a child on a bike, he should have slowed, waited until he was clear of the junction and given the cyclist plenty of space. The fact he couldn't stop before travelling across the road and mounting the pavement indicates he was either going to fast or not paying enough attention. I hope when my kids are out and about drivers are more careful and have better hazard perception than the van driver.

I imagine every cyclist is someone I love. I slow down and give them all the space they need.

Sometimes cyclists wobble or veer erratically because the road is in bad condition. Something that won't affect a car or van can be really dangerous to a bike.

Give cyclists space and time.

@Pancakeorcrepe

Well if he is a child, he shouldn’t be cycling alone on the road. I’m sorry but if you’re not responsible and sensible enough to cycle safely then you shouldn’t do so.

It's possible for a child to be both a competent road cyclist and make a mistake (unless you genuinely think no one ever makes mistakes on the road).

Of course the child has learnt a lesson and should have looked before moving. If he was my son he'd be getting a bollocking and at the very least a reminder of the highway code but only after I'd throughly checked he was ok.

The fact remains that the van driver is at fault and if he'd ranted at my son after running him over in a van and trashing his bike I'd be fuming and definitely be calling the police

The van driver is unlikely to be found fully at fault. At worst it might be 50/50 depending on the bikes position before he started to overtake.

As said above, there's no requirement for police involvement and the chances of them attending if they have been called would be close to zero.